Criminal Justice

The major in Criminal Justice provides an overview of the criminal justice system, the causes of crime and issues relating to social control. The program is structured around a core of criminal justice courses that include topics in law enforcement, the judicial process and correctional system. The course of study consists of a general overview of the components of the criminal justice system with the overall goal of exposing students to a wide variety of academic disciplines: business, political science, psychology, social work and sociology. A student will take approximately 54 to 55 credit hours in criminal justice in order to obtain a Bachelor of Science degree.

Within the major, students may choose to emphasize one of three areas. The law enforcement emphasis is designed primarily for students who wish to become local, state or federal law enforcement officers (e.g., city police officers, state highway patrol officers or Federal Bureau of Investigation agents). The judicial emphasis is for those students who wish to continue their education in law school or other areas of this branch of the criminal justice system (e.g., victim advocate, pretrial investigator, etc). Finally, the corrections emphasis is best suited for students who wish to work in a correctional setting for juveniles or adults (e.g., correctional caseworker, correctional officer, drug counselor, parole officer or probation officer).